Turn your opponent into a pile of rubble with Armada: Modern Tanks

Armada: Modern Tanks is a free massively multiplayer online game that puts you behind the controls of a tank where you seek out and destroy your opponents on the battlefield. Available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile, Armada: Modern Tanks offers a few game modes, detailed graphics and challenging gameplay.

You also get plenty of upgrades to unlock for your tanks, decals to customize them and daily combat quests to earn bonus upgrades. Armada: Modern Tanks tests your skills at battle strategy, reaction and combat management. All in all, it is a Windows 10 game that is a blast to spend a little time with.

When you first launch Armada: Modern Tanks, the game sends you directly to a tutorial that covers the basics on gameplay and controlling your tank. Touch screen devices have virtual joysticks for movement and swiping the screen rotates the tank's turret. Additional on-screen controls are present for weapon's control and to zoom in on your target. Non-touch devices (or those with keyboards) rely on a keyboard/mouse combination for tank control.

Once you complete the tutorial, Armada: Modern Tanks launches from a garage-style screen that displays your game stats across the top of the screen. These stats include your fuel cells (required for gameplay), experience level and gold/silver counts. Your current tank center screen and options to upgrade or customize your tank and enter the battlefield are located at the bottom of the display.

Gold and silver are earned during gameplay and can be used to shorten your game rejuvenation, buy upgrades or customizations and unlock additional tanks. Upgrades include engine boosts, targeting system improvements, armor levels and weapons destructiveness. Customizations include decals and paint jobs that carry performance enhancements.

Gameplay begins with you commanding a very modest tank, the BPM-1. As you build up your gold and silver fortune, an additional 19 tanks ranging from the Soviet T-64 to the British Chieftain can be unlocked and sent into battle. If you feel the need to unlock these tanks sooner, you can give your gold and silver accounts a boost through in-app purchases that start at $1.99.

Once you are through exploring the garage area of Armada and are ready to mix it up with other tankers, just tap the Battle tile that rests in the bottom right corner of the screen. Online matches come in two varieties with free-for-all and team modes available. Armada offers three battlefield environments that progressively become unlocked and includes urban, military and mountain battlefields.

The primary goal of Armada: Modern Tanks is to obliterate your opponents with secondary quests available to unlock bonus upgrades to your tank. These secondary quests include collecting a set number of refueling cells, health kits, and other items that appear on the battlefield. Gameplay does cost you fuel points, but Armada offers you a healthy supply of 10 units that replenish automatically over time.

Your stats run across the top of the screen, including player profile, quests, game timer and gold/silver counts. Game controls are nestled in the bottom corners of the screen. In the center of the display rests the tank's damage meter, reload meter and targeting sights. A duplicate set of damage and reload meters are displayed at the top of the screen.

There is also a small thumbnail map positioned in the upper right side of the game display. This map highlights your position and the position of your enemy.

Each round of gameplay is timed at five minutes and points are earned based on the damage inflicted on tanks, as well as the number of tanks blown to bits. Players earn gold and silver based on their placement on the battle leaderboard.

The overall gameplay experience with Armada isn't too shabby. Graphics are nice and full of detail. The graphic level is almost too much for a Windows 10 Mobile phone, but manageable. I did experience a little lag time playing Armada from a Lumia 950 and for obvious reasons, the game performed better from a Windows 10 PC device. You can dial back the graphic quality if the lag is too much for you to bear.

Tank controls are nicely responsive, but I did have trouble panning around the battlefield when the view was zoomed. More times than not, when I tapped the controls to pan the zoomed view, the display would return to the non-zoomed view.

As with any online game, Armada players range in skills that offer a nice variety of difficulties and skills. Some battlefield opponents remain stationary and try to go toe-to-toe with other tanks, while other gamers are sneakier and hunt down their opponents. You do have the ability to link your game profile between devices and avoid losing any progress made on the battlefield.

Armada: Modern Tanks is a fun and entertaining Windows 10 game that is a free title available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile. The game does need a little fine-tuning under the hood with respect to on-screen controls, but nothing that rises to the level of being terminal.

The bottom line with Armada: Modern Tanks is that if you like battling online opponents, it is a Windows 10 game worth checking out.